for Bugsy and nicco: By 'serious study of our own climate' I meant just that, and not research starting from the view that the primary independent variable is carbon dioxide, and that we need to research globally. Yes, there has been some work on our own climate, especially on ENSO and the comparable Indian Ocean system, and they are powerful influences on our climate that have virtually nothing to do with carbon dioxide accumulations — at least no one has proposed anything sensible to that effect yet. I hope that helps.

Do we have plenty of time? I presently think so. We seem to be entering a longish cool/cold spell, and if I am right that will take the pressure off the 'carbon dioxide is the villain' mantra, and allow climate scientists to look harder at whether or not they can distinguish the signature of human activity within climate's natural variability. So far, no one has been able to do so.

If I am wrong, and warming will resume sooner or later, then there seems nothing much we can do about it except adapt, and that is what I was arguing when I first wrote: we need good systems to deal with climate and natural disasters, however they occur and whatever their cause. Unless China and India come to the party with respect to limiting emissions, it seems pretty pointless for Australia to do so, especially when we are exporting vast quantities of coal to these countries. And the effect of our limiting emissions through a carbon tax will have no discernible effect whatever on the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere for a thousand years, as Dr Flannery has explained.

And a minor peeve: I know that we Aitkins are an illiterate lot, and ought to spell our name with a final 'en' like the much ore numerous Aitkens. But it's not all that hard to see how I spell it. If you want to take issue with me, could you manage to spell my surname my way?

Cheers,

Don

Sorry, Mr Aitken.

Nicco

With respect: many "statements are backed by a wealth of reference to experimental evidence" are not in fact backed by much except a "simulation" of a "projected scenario" that checks a "hypothesis that anthropogenic climate change may effect".

Or words to that effect.

I doubt that the Aitkins are an illiterate lot, and I apologise for mis-spelling Don Aitkin's name. But it does seem that he is wilfully *scientifically* illiterate.

Aitkin has been promulgating his complacent message for some years, and seems to have taken no account of the many and various people who have attempted to point him towards the science. This is so marked, that one must conclude that his motivation, like so many denialists, is not scientific but poltical.

Warming has not ceased, but continues. See: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD012105.shtml Aitkin (deliberately?) misinterprets Tim Flannery's correct observation about the time lag effect of atmospheric CO2. We are stuck with the consequences of what we have done, for many centuries, but if we persist in adding CO2 to the atmosphere, we will suffer dangerous temperature rises.

As for Aitkin, so for cactus: if you have not seen the scientific evidence, it is not because it doesn't exist, but because you have chosen not to look. (What does cactus think that climate scientist do all day, with their buoys and satellites and balloons and phenological studies?) Personally, I find this a grossly irresponsible attitude. We have only one planet, and if there is even the slightest chance that the world's climatologists are correct, then we should be taking appropriate steps. We insure our lives and houses and belongings on evidence that is flimsy by comparison.

Nicco:

Oh dear no. I have been through WG1 of AR4 on three occasions, and will go through it again before long. I have said several times that the AGW argument is plausible but not compelling, and part of my life for thirty years has been assessing scientists' requests for large amounts of money to enable them to do what they want to do, so I do have some sense of what is involved. My position is neither 'scientific' not 'political': it is simply being unpersuaded that what is said to be the case, is so. Any reasonably educated person can sort AGW out for himself or herself. It's not that hard, though there is a fair amount of reading and thinking to do.

I simply don't agree with what you say. For example, the evidence on sea-level rise and ocean warming is mixed, not all one way. Buoys, balloons and satellites do not show, unequivocally, that human actions are warming the planet, that sea-levels are rising or that whatever warming is occurring is in any way unprecedented. Why do you think they do? What data, and what arguments, are you pointing to? You say that we should act if there is only 'the slightest chance that the world's climatologists are correct'.

I don't agree — and I wonder what you mean by 'the slightest chance' — is that one chance in a thousand, a million, a billion? That just seems rhetoric to me. If it is proposed that we impose a carbon tax which seems unlikely to achieve anything, then I want to know why we are doing this. As someone else has written, extraordinary measures require extraordinary justification.

I don't know where you are coming from, or what drives you. But I'm happy to provide you with some of my own writings in this area if you are interested — and discuss the issues with you when you've read, if you think that would be helpful. (donaitkin@grapevine.com.au)

Writings on the issue of Climate Change - it is obvious that their worth encompasses a great disparity from different quarters, at least on OLO.
At what end of the spectrum, say from 0 to 10, would the various readers place the writings of Don Aitkin (as presented to date on OLO) and those of the Australian Academy of Science (as presented in The Science of Cimate Change, Questions and Answers - dated August 2010 and available on the web). There is little doubt that they would appear at extreme, and opposite, ends of that scale; and the author of this blog’s article would be somewhere in between.